Hi! After a forced break, I'm back to work! My health is almost okay, and new ideas have appeared in my head. In this devlog I'll tell you a bit more about the development.

First, about the combat system. Your anus is in danger:

Heh-heh… and that's not the end of this scene. In the build you'll see a lot more!

What exactly was added? Well, basically I gave the player a special attack, the same way the monsters have one.

But the success conditions for this attack will differ from monster to monster. Some monsters will need to be stunned, some will need their HP dropped to a certain level, and some will only be defenceless while they're attacking. I'm planning to add some visual cues so the player can better understand exactly when there's a chance for a special attack.

As for when the next build will be. I'm planning to release it next week, since there are still some scenes left to finish drawing and to polish up visually. I'm also thinking about adding a difficulty level for the fights that you'd be able to adjust in the game settings. This difficulty won't be reflected only in increasing/decreasing the monsters' HP, but also in how exactly the enemies' attacks are telegraphed and how fast they are, and in how hard/easy it will be to pull off special attacks and the minigames inside them.

The next thing I want to talk about is exploring. It's the part of the game that let the player explore the world more, but at the same time it was limited to 4 locations and to random events, which are a fight with the monster assigned to the location and a random situation. In my opinion, expanding this system is limited and needs a rethink, but at the same time I'm curious to hear your thoughts about it. So now I'll lay out my thoughts on the possible directions this system could develop in.

First, about the foundation — how the minigame looks:

As you know, it's a fairly simple minigame. You move around a grid and reveal the surrounding cells, finding out what's inside them. It's simple and easy to understand, but the way I implemented moving between locations is an ordinary scripted path, in which the only randomness is what happens on the cells.

How exactly could this be improved? Well, in my opinion movement between locations should always be the same path, since in practice you're walking along a trail from point A to point B.

But what about simple exploring? Instead of having a location you arrive at — what if there were no destination at all? The goal of exploring like that, from the player's side, could be simply farming monsters, and looking for new situations and maybe even locations where you could meet NPCs or monster girls who can't be found through the ordinary route. Exploring like that could generate paths and cells, which might be interesting for the player, but at the same time it's content that has no story meaning and would exist purely for the sake of content. So this needs to be thought through even more.

I'm skipping the fights, since those have already been improved. But the random situations… there's a problem here.

The reason is simple: these situations were created in order to fill the game with more content. Which means they don't carry any particular meaning in themselves. Are they needed at all? Well… yes and no. In practice you can collect them to unlock the gallery, and that's their only purpose, which doesn't fully satisfy my vision for this game. Creating these scenes takes a lot of time and requires a playback order, sound effects and so on. And the problem is that once I start adding new paths and new locations, the number of situations needed will grow every single time!

So right now I'm at a crossroads. There's an idea to make the situation scenes more similar to how the prologue looks.

I mean the drawing style, and possibly the canvas size as well. Remove the sounds from the situations and show the situation like a manga. That would reduce the volume of work, but the problem would remain — the number of these situations and their meaning. First I need to find out your opinion on whether you even liked these situations, and whether your impression of the game would change much if they weren't there at all. This is important, so feel free to write your thoughts in the Discord channel, or in the comments under this devlog!

That's all for now regarding my thoughts on exploring, and the news. Look forward to the next devlog!